CHAPTER 5
Chapter 5 ~ The Plot Thickens
It was mid-afternoon, and Hermione and Snape were in their usual positions, on a bench across the street watching Mrs. Lovett’s meat shop. Hermione was reading a penny dreadful, while Snape appeared to just be enjoying the atmosphere. But his dark eyes continually shifted to the wooden stairwell that led to Todd’s barber shop.
He started when Pirelli’s former charge ran down the stairs, clearly holding a paper and darted up the street. Snape’s mouth tightened grimly.
”Hermione, we have to go,” he said to the witch. Hermione looked up at him, then over at the meat pie shop. Nothing seemed to be going on. It was before the dinner rush.
“Alms! Alms for a miserable woman!”
Hermione jumped because the call was almost right in her ear. She looked up to see a bent woman, her face lowered and hidden by her ragtag bonnet. The layers of clothing she wore beneath her tattered frock were equally as tattered, and she smelled of piss. One hand was outstretched and curled, ready to receive whatever pittance could be given.
”Alms for a miserable woman!” she cried again.
Hermione began to reach into her small clutch purse to give the woman a coin, but Snape’s pale hand reached across her line of sight and dropped a large amount of money into the woman’s palm. It closed tightly.
”Thank you, sir! Thank you!” she cackled.
The woman trundled off, still crying for alms although Snape had given her almost 20 pounds.
Hermione looked at him, stunned at his generosity.
“I can’t believe you gave her that much money!” Hermione exclaimed.
Snape looked after the old woman, his face expressionless.
”A final kindness,” he said softly, then, “come, we have to go, now.”
He stood up and waited for Hermione, taking her arm.
”Where are we going? Back to the judge’s house?” she asked as they walked quickly.
”No, we won’t be returning there,” Snape replied, turning down a narrow, smelly and very nearly dark alley. He pulled out his wand and changed into his familiar black robes.
”The masquerade is over,” he told Hermione, who had her nose covered with her hand against the strong ammonia smell surrounding them. “Change into your robes.”
With her other hand, Hermione reached into her bodice and removed her wand. With a flick and swish, she changed into her familiar and comfortable robes and trainers. What a relief after days of wrestling with petticoats and shoes without proper arch support. Snape took her arm and Disapparated.
They reappeared in a dark, damp basement with glistening walls. The air was thick with heat and stink. In the center of the large room was an enormous oven, cylindrical with a locking iron door. It stood more than seven feet high and seemed to contain the fires of hell themselves. On the floor was an iron grate that led to the sewers beneath, and sluices were cut into the stone floor, moving water through the area and down tunnels which also spilled into the sewer. On the other side of the room was the biggest meat grinder Hermione had ever seen. Beneath the stained spout rested a huge wooden tub. It was empty. A few spluttering tallow candles ensconced on the walls lit the area, but the major source of hellish light came from the open oven grill window.
Hermione looked around the dismal place.
“It smells like a slaughterhouse married a shithouse,” she whispered to Snape. Her voice still echoed.
“It’s Mrs. Lovett’s bake house,” Snape replied. “It does serve as a slaughterhouse of sorts and is located over the sewers. Hence, the stench.”
Hermione walked over to a cooking dolly that held several trays of freshly baked pies. Despite their content, they were golden brown and smelled delicious over the stench.
“I can see why people like these pies,” she said softly.
”They would like them less if they saw this,” Snape said suddenly from the left of her. He was standing in front of a recess. Hermione walked over and gasped at the sight that met her eyes.
There on the floor rested red, glistening carcasses. The skeletons had been broken apart and stripped of most of the flesh, but bits of meat and tendon stubbornly clung to the bones. It was a large assortment of human ribcages, skulls, pelvic bones, arms and legs, all in a grisly pile atop a rank puddle of ichor that slowly drained into a nearby sluice. A couple of plump rats slipped through the bones, obviously living high on the scraps of flesh left behind. On a shelf above the bones were the smaller body parts, hands, feet and neck vertebrate, still rather meaty and probably waiting to be boiled.
”Oh my gods,” Hermione gasped, tears filling her eyes. “How could they do this? There must be parts of at least 20 people here.”
“Apparently Mr. Todd is very prolific,” Snape responded. “But he’s not much on disposal. I suppose he thinks that’s Mrs. Lovett’s job.”
Hermione spun on him.
”How can you be so flippant about this?” she demanded. “You’re heartless!”
Snape arched an eyebrow at her.
“These are fictional characters, Hermione. They aren’t real,” he replied softly.
”They’re real enough. They feel love and pain, they have lives. And these lives have all been cut short by a madman! I don’t care if this world is ‘real’ to us or not. It’s very real to them, and this is horrible!”
“You have to contain yourself, Hermione. If the sight of mere bones sets you off, then what is about to occur in this basement will make you have a complete breakdown. You’ve been through a war and seen horrible things. You’re no stranger to Death. You have to be stronger than this,” Snape told her.
Hermione was about to continue the argument when Snape held up his hand to silence her. There was a sober look in his eyes as they met those of his apprentice.
“This is not just a mission, Hermione, it is a test. A test of your mettle. You need to find the strength not to interfere, the power to turn off your instinct to rush in as savior. It is a test that I myself have faced. A test—that I have passed time and time again. As your master, I require it of you.”
Hermione stared at Snape, realizing he had indeed been tested. When he served the Dark Lord, when he killed Dumbledore, when he witnessed the death of professor Burbage. If he had done anything, the outcome at the final battle could have been much different. Voldemort could have won. Hermione knew a little about changing outcomes.
She had saved Buckbeak and Sirius Black, but she also later changed another outcome in order to right what she considered a grave injustice. She took a large chance altering destiny, but she never regretted her decision.
Suddenly, the iron door leading into the bake house clanked.
“Disillusion yourself,” Snape hissed at her, tapping the top of his head with his wand and melting away into a slight shimmer. Hermione did likewise, and stood frozen as more clanks followed and the sound of a heavy bolt being pulled away ended the noise.
The heavy door was slowly pushed opened and Mrs. Lovett entered, followed by Pirelli’s boy. Hermione’s eyes narrowed as the woman led him in. There was a look on the baker’s face that she didn’t like at all.
Snape caught Hermione’s arm, drawing her away to the far wall, and quietly cast a Silencing spell. They would be able to hear each other, but no one else could. Hermione might be able to exercise restraint, but not vocally reacting. This would be a test indeed.
“Do I need to take your wand?” Snape asked her. Hermione frowned at his shimmer, but it was a totally wasted effort, since he couldn’t see her displeasure.
”No. I’ll be fine,” she replied stiffly.
“We’ll see,” the disembodied voice responded.
With the flickering shadows and flame that illuminated the bake house, their shimmers were practically undetectable.
The boy’s face screwed up as he followed Mrs. Lovett.
“Quite a stink, ain’t there?,” he said. Mrs. Lovett pointed to the floor.
“You see those grates? They go right down to the sewers, and the smells come up. Always a few rats gone home to Jesus down there,” she replied, walking up to the huge oven.
”What’s the boy’s name?” Hermione asked Snape.
”Tobias,” he said shortly.
If Hermione could have seen his face, she would have seen how tight his jaw went at the answer.
She watched as Mrs. Lovett gave him instructions on using the oven. She opened the heavy door by lifting a heavy latch and heat blasted out as the flames roared. Tobias peered in.
“Now, this’ll be the bake oven. Three dozen at a time. Always be sure the door is closed properly, like this,” she said, demonstrating. The door locked with a somewhat sinister clank. Tobias opened and closed the door similarly. Then Mrs. Lovett led him over to the huge grinder, grasping the turn handle.
“This is a grinder. Pop in the meat. Give it a good grind. Pops out there,” she instructed, cranking the grinder. Apparently the meat was already in. Thick, moist, red, raw and unhealthy-looking strings of meat slowly slithered out of the holes and snaked into the wooden tub. Blood streamed down the metal in little rivulets and dripped into a conveniently located sluice.
”You try,” she said to Tobias, who replaced her at the crank and gave it a good grind.
Hermione felt nauseous as she looked at the ground human flesh filling the tub. That used to be a person. Someone’s son or husband. Now, he’d be someone’s lunch or dinner.
“That’s my boy,” Mrs. Lovett said a slightly sad expression on her face. Then she brightened and headed for the door, opening it. Then she turned to Tobias.
“I’m just gonna pop upstairs. Back in two shakes, all right?” she said, wearing a fake smile.
“You mind if I have a pie while I wait?,” Tobias asked hopefully.
Mrs. Lovett’s face went soft.
“Have as many as you like, son,” she said softly, then exited the bake shop. There was the sound of locking on the other side.
”She’s locked him in,” Hermione said.
”Yes,” Snape agreed as Hermione’s shimmer crossed the room, following Tobias as he walked toward the trays of pies. She wanted to warn him, to stop him from taking one, but she couldn’t interfere.
Her eyes glistened as he picked up a pie and bit into it. His chewing slowed and a confused look crossed his face as he stopped chewing completely.
”Oh no,” Hermione breathed as he pulled out the top segment of a thumb, the nail still on it. He stared at it for a moment, then looked around, his eyes falling on the recess. He slowly walked over to it and looked inside.
He saw the bones. He blinked, then approached the shelf on which rested the severed hands and feet. He picked one up.
Suddenly there was a loud noise as the ceiling above him opened up and he leapt out of the way as the body of Beadle crashed to the floor, his eyes sightless, throat slit from ear to ear and blood coating his chest and draining to the floor. Tobias screamed and ran for the door, beating on it and begging to be let out.
Hermione screamed as well. It was a good thing Snape had cast the Silencing spell or Tobias would have added ghosts to this chamber of horrors. Hermione stared down at Pettigrew’s double’s body, ashen and shaken.
”Todd killed him,” Hermione breathed.
“Apparently, in this world as well as ours, this character has absolutely no luck,” Snape said quietly over her shoulder.
Hermione looked over at Tobias, who had stopped pounding on the door. He was looking around the bake shop, horror in his eyes.
”I believe he’s finally got it,” Snape commented.
They watched as he ran about, looking for someplace to hide. The tunnels all led to dead ends, only having a bit of space for the water to drain out. Hermione so wanted to help him.
“Is he going to die? Is Todd going to kill him?” Hermione asked.
”Everyone dies eventually,” Snape replied cryptically.
”That’s no answer!” Hermione exclaimed.
”Just watch,” Snape told her.
Tobias ran over to the grate and looked down at it, then dropped to his knees and tugged with all his might. There was a cracking noise, and the boy pulled harder. The grate came up and he dropped in. There must have been a ledge because he pulled the grate back into the hole as if it had never been removed.
”Smart boy,” Snape observed. “Had he been a wizard, he might have been sorted into Slytherin.”
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A/N: Another chapter. Thanks for reading. ***